


The Finest Of Arts( Cause We Could Be Immortals)

by DigitalMeowMix



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Brothers, Caregiving, Coma, Gen, Healing, Regret, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 09:19:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4257921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DigitalMeowMix/pseuds/DigitalMeowMix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nursing and being a superhero are a lot alike</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Finest Of Arts( Cause We Could Be Immortals)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta [Morbane](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane)!

Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation as any painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.  
— Florence Nightingale

Before God and those assembled here, I solemnly pledge;

 

1\. To adhere to the code of ethics of the nursing profession

He visits Callaghan in prison only once while Tadashi is still in a coma. Why visit him? Aunt Cass asks.; Her face is tight and sad. She obviously thinks it’s a bad idea .The therapist she brings him to agrees. How can he tell her the truth, that despite everything, he did it for family? For Abigail. After all he was willing to kill for Tadashi. Callaghan doesn't talk very much. He knows his apologies and explanations are useless, he is intelligent enough to not try to justify his actions. Maybe he could when he thought Abigail was dead. But now when Hiro looks across the glass in the visitation room at Callaghan all he sees is remorse mixed with relief. What is vengance good for if what you do it for is void? Their conversation is brief. Hiro tells him Tadashi is still in a coma. Callaghan nods then starts to speak, but stumbles: “I know I have no right to ask... but could you... Abigail is still in the hospital, the same one as your brother. Could you visit her, just once?” He looks at Callaghan and sees his grief, grief that has been there much longer than his own over Tadashi. Their grief is tinged with regret, both of them are drowning in it just the same. He thinks of what Tadashi would say if he was awake. To be the better person. To be a hero. He says yes.

Two days later Abigail Callaghan wakes up to a new face at her hospital bedside. For a moment she is disappointed it's not her father. But of course not. the doctor says he is jail, and the thought is painful and confusing. The boy sitting by her bed smiles nervously. He is holding a small bouquet of yellow flowers. “Hi, my name is Hiro Tamada”. I helped rescue you.”.

 

2\. To co-operate faithfully with the other members of the nursing team and to carry out faithfully and to the best of my ability the instructions of the physician or the nurse who may be assigned to supervise my work;

For the first few days Tadashi is in the hospital, the doctors say he is touch and go. After almost a week of being in medically induced coma they don't know if he will ever wake up, never mind recover fully. Aunt Cass sits at Tadashi's bedside across from Hiro and tries desperately not to cry every second as she look at his pale sleeping face. Whenever she turns her eyes and catches Hiro's her eyes are wide and wet and she looks away quickly and pretends she is not wiping the tears away with the back of her hand. At the end of the day when visiting hours are over they slowly say their goodbyes to to Tadashi's prone form and drive in silence back home. Sometimes they stop at Panda Burger for dinner where they eat grimly at the little wooden picnic table by the parking lot as the cars swoosh by. After eating there one night, Aunt Cass gently says.,"Tadashi's friends have been asking about you.” Tadashi's school friends had sent a giant sympathy bouquet of flowers with self-watering irrigation system built into the base. If he had been able to think about anything but how terrified he was that Tadashi was going to die,he would have thought it was cool. "They wanted to ask you if you wanted to hang out with them.You could update them on Tadashi's condition when you see them. They seem like great kids and they’re worried about you." Why would they be worried about him? They only met him once.

Hiro finishes the last bite of his burger and stands up to throw the wrapper away without replying. Aunt Cass sighs and doesn't push the subject the rest of the ride home. The next morning there is a message from a number he doesn't recognize on his phone. It is riddled with typos and is in caps lock.Hiro had better typing etiquette when he was six

HEY MAN WHATS UP!!! DO U FEEL LIEKE GOING OUT TOMORROOW FOR  
SUSHI WIT THE GAANG? I ALREADY CLEARED IT WIT UR AUNT SO NO WORRIES.

FRED

He ignores it. That night he drops his fighter bot on his foot and Baymax activates.“Hiro as your personal health care aide I believe I must diagnose you with depression due to grief..In times of sadness a support system of friends and family can help alleviate symptoms, therefore I took the liberty of contacting your friends from the contact list on your phone."

“WHAT?”

 

3\. I will not do anything evil or malicious and I will not knowingly give any harmful drug or assist in malpractice.

Hiro loves being a superhero, they all do. But he thinks Fred loves it the most. He has tons of action figures lining his room and a huge library of comics and manga. He invites the whole team over for “research” when they're first starting out being heroes.This mostly entails reading his extensive collection of Shonen Jump manga and watching cheesy Super Sentai movies, and arguing about the special effects and the coolness of the costumes. Three weeks after Callaghan is put away they watch The Adventures of ZatMan. When the final face-off between Zatman and the evil wizard that killed his father starts, with Zatman holding the wizard over a magical portal in space time and struggling with morality of dropping him into nether-space, Hiro suddenly can’t breathe. Baymax boots up from the corner of the room and hurriedly squeaks across the room to the front of the couch, ignoring GoGo throwing popcorn at his head and yelping “Down in front!” 

“Hiro ,my sensors are showing an elevated heart rate and labored breathing ,do you require assistance?”

Hiro lunges over and clings to Baymax’s squishy white arm. Honey Lemon is sitting next to him and starts to rub his back and ask in a very concerned tone if he is OK, and when she can tell he isn't she leads him in a few breathing exercises her mom taught her. She tells Fred to go get him a glass of water and talks Wasabi down from calling 911. She explains PTSD and triggers and how it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but he is ashamed but not of freaking out. He had almost killed Callaghan when the other man had been unmasked.He had used his power, Baymax’s power, that Tadashi worked so hard on creating, to nearly cause harm instead of to fix and prevent it. If Tadashi ever woke up from his coma, which was now entering almost a month long, he would be ashamed of him. He slows his breathing eventually and tells them all he’s fine and asks Wasabi to drive him home. Wasabi brings him home and as he goes to exit Wasabi’s little electric car, Wasabi puts his big hand on Hiro's shoulder and squeezes. “You gonna be OK man?” “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Hiro replies, and he hopes it is the truth.

4\. I will not reveal any confidential information that may come to my knowledge in the course of my work.

He is lying in bed not sleeping, he still doesn't sleep very well even since Callaghan was put away; He thought he would be get over the nightmares now that he defeated his enemy, but the glaring face of his kabuki mask still haunts him whenever he closes his eyes. The communicator that Honey built last week beeps. He turns to left of the bed where the communicator rests by his Lucky Cat alarm clock and sees that it's 1am before he reaches over and grabs the communicator flipping it open to read the “Danger Alert”. 

It’s from Go-Go. “A dude with a laser is holding up a convenience store downtown, how fast can you get here?”

Hiro jolts out of bed and grabs his gear from the closet with one hand while texting his reply with his non-dominant hand.

B Rite There, ETA 15.

As he tugs on his purple body armor, Baymax boots up. “Hiro it is currently 1 AM , This is 4 hours past your recommended bedtime and and if you do not stay in bed and go to sleep you will not be optimally rested for a new day of learning at the academy; Children your age should have 8 hours of sleep every night…”

Hiro shushes the robot.

"The team needs me, Baymax! it will only be for like a half hour, and then I will come straight home to bed, I promise, " he insisted as he settled his helmet on his head and and clicked the visor down.

If Baymax's plain expression could frown, that's what he would be doing at this moment.  
The robot is clearly unmoved by his plea. "I have to insist as your healthcare provider that this is not a healthy course of action., iIf you insist upon going against my advice I will have to contact the emergency contact that is on my database" which is Aunt Cass, fast asleep down the hall after a busy day running the cafe.

"No No No!"Hiro yelps a little too loudly, and then covers his mouth and continues much more quietly 

“Look, Baymax, Im your patient that means I have patient doctor privilege right?” “You can't tell Aunt Cass about my treatments, and remember how we decided me being a superhero was like therapy?

Baymax makes a slight whirring noise as his processors work taking in this information and checking it to his databases.

"Correct," he says.

“If something goes wrong and I'm in trouble then I give you permission to tell Aunt Cass, but until then I need to keep this a secret, even if I lose sleep, OK?”

"Affirmative.”

Hiro smiles and grabs his backpack and opens his bedroom window.."Meet you downstairs,” he says as he jumps out the window and activates his new rocket boots.

 

5\. And I pledge myself to do all in my power to raise the standards and prestige of practical nursing;

Tadashi left lots of video diaries on Baymax’s databases, not just of the first series of test runs, but also of him running drills of different medical emergencies to test his programming. Sprained ankles, asthma attacks, bloody noses, heart attacks. All replicated to the best of Tadashi’s ability. Hiro watches them all, sometimes late at night when he can't sleep, when the nightmares and anxiety are too thick for him to bear to close his eyes. Watching these videos Hiro is awed by just how much work was put into Baymax, not just technical know- how, but medical knowledge and even basic psychology. Baymax is not just first aid , he's a therapist . It makes him so proud of his big brother , of what he accomplished, what he believed in. Hiro knows he’s caused a lot of trouble and heartache for Aunt Cass and Tadashi in the past, and being a hero now will cause them even more in the future. But Hiro makes a promise to himself to be better, to do better, not just as a hero but as a person.And if Tadashi ever wakes up, maybe he can make his brother proud.

 

6\. May my life be devoted to service and to the high ideals of the nursing profession.

The first thing Tadashi does when he wakes up is ask if Hiro is OK., The second thing he does is start yelling incoherently when he hears what Hiro has been up to.Thankfully, Aunt Cass is out getting them a celebration dinner of sushi while this happens. It takes a few weeks of recovery at home, a few shouting matches while Aunt Cass is at work, and the the support of the whole team, but in the end Tadashi is on board with the superhero thing. At first he just makes adjustments to Baymax, makes him faster, stronger, more cuddly. During an emergency he goes to the lab to get Baymax , there is a five alarm fire downtown and they need to get there quick. Hiro is at the door when he hears Tadashi’s voice which sounds weirdly shaky and for a moment he panics, is Tadashi still in pain? ”I never thanked you, for protecting him. You're the most important invention I ever made”.The two of you are gonna save the whole world together huh?”

”Affirmative.” 

Hiro smiles and knocks on the door. “Suit up buddy, it’s go time!”

Once Tadashi heals completely it's only a matter of time until he gets out there in the field too.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from a quote from Florence Nightingale and and the song "Immortals" from the soundtrack from Fall Out Boy
> 
> The quotes at the beginning of each scene are from the "Practical Nurse Pledge", a modern version based on the "Nightingale Pledge"
> 
>  
> 
>  


End file.
